Quotes About Independence

But I don't think of you. (Howard Roark)

I don't wish to be the symbol of anything. I'm only myself.

To say 'I love you' one must first know how to say the 'I.' The meaning of the 'I' is an independent, self-sufficient entity that does not exist for the sake of any other person. A person who exists only for the sake of his loved one is not an independent entity, but a spiritual parasite. The love of a parasite is worth nothing.

Never ask people about your work.

Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.

Toohey: Mr. Roark, we're alone here. Why don't you tell me what you think of me? In any words you wish. No one will hear us. Roark: But I don't think of you.

In a free society, one does not have to deal with those who are irrational. One is free to avoid them.

Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.

You have been called selfish for the courage of acting on your own judgement and bearing sole responsibility for your own life. You have been called arrogant for your independent mind. You have been called cruel for your unyielding integrity. You have been calle anti social for the vision that made you venture upon undiscovered roads.

I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need. I wished to come here and say that I am a man who does not exist for others. - Howard Roark

Every loneliness is a pinnacle

Degrees of ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man's independence, initiative and personal love for his work determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man. Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn't done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence.

I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life.

Place nothing above the verdict of your own mind.

I understood that centuries of chains and lashes will not kill the spirit of man nor the sense of truth within him.

John Galt is Prometheus who changed his mind. After centuries of being torn by vultures in payment for having brought to men the fire of the gods, he broke his chains—and he withdrew his fire—until the day when men withdraw their vultures.

Why no. I'm too conceited. If you want to call it that. I don't make comparisons. I never think of myself in relation to anyone else. I just refuse to measure myself as part of anything. I'm an utter egotist.

I dont work with collectives. I don't consult, i don't co-operate, I don't collaborate.

Never ask people. Not about your work. Don't you know what you want? How can you stand it, not to know?

Man—every man—is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life.

To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. This and nothing else.

A "collective" mind does not exist. It is merely the sum of endless numbers of individual minds. If we have an endless number of individual minds who are weak, meek, submissive and impotent – who renounce their creative supremacy for the sake of the "whole" and accept humbly that the "whole's" verdict – we don't get a collective super-brain. We get only the weak, meek, submissive and impotent collective mind.

Before you can do things for people, you must be the kind of man who can get things done. But to get things done, you must love the doing, not the secondary consequences. The work, not the people. Your own action, not any possible object of your charity.

A Conformist is a man who declares, It's true because others believe it - but an Individualist is NOT a man who declares, It's true because I believe it. An Individual declares, I believe it because I see in reason that it is true.